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Peter Moore on why the plug was pulled on the Dreamcast
- Thread starter Eroke
- Start date
Moore's putting some blame on Sony FUD? Sega failed because they blame the competition than themselves. The Dreamcast hardware was great, but their default controller was regressive. Missed the point where 3D controllers were going, and they just jazzed-up a Saturn 3D controller.
The PS1 Dualshock already had twin sticks, and it's no surprise that the next generation with PS2, Xbox and GCN also had them and this is where console games were going. Stuck with a single stick that generation was a dumb foresight on Segas part.
The PS1 Dualshock already had twin sticks, and it's no surprise that the next generation with PS2, Xbox and GCN also had them and this is where console games were going. Stuck with a single stick that generation was a dumb foresight on Segas part.
Moore's right in a way, the Dreamcast had an incredible catalog but...
"What we also saw was the way that our marketing came together and really lifted the entire industry from being predominantly a toy category, typically enjoyed by the stereotypical 12-year-old gamer in their spare bedroom. It moved gaming from the spare room to the living room."
I completely disagree with this. In the UK at least, the original Playstation was the console that moved (console) gaming from the bedroom to the living room.
"What we also saw was the way that our marketing came together and really lifted the entire industry from being predominantly a toy category, typically enjoyed by the stereotypical 12-year-old gamer in their spare bedroom. It moved gaming from the spare room to the living room."
I completely disagree with this. In the UK at least, the original Playstation was the console that moved (console) gaming from the bedroom to the living room.
I was having the time of my life with Dreamcast in 2001, no clue whatsoever that the system or Sega was in enough trouble to pull the plug on hardware. IGN broke the news for me and I was totally floored.
With how news is spread now across various media we'd have every gaming personality in existence talking about Sega's woes for months on end.
Same here in Finland, and I'd wager across Europe. Their infamous ads in the old continent also reflected that shift.
It was PlayStation which brought many in my circles to console gaming, me included. It felt like it was aimed for people who grew up with C64 and Amiga, partly due to Psygnosis and their WipEout.
He doesn't say in the article why it was pulled though. Yes, the PS2 did well, but even the GameCube and Xbox found moderate success with only 20 or so million consoles shipped each.
The fact that you could just rip games off the internet so easily just made it an unviable platform for publishers.
The fact that you could just rip games off the internet so easily just made it an unviable platform for publishers.
Still, it was veeery common, every person I knew who had a PSX had it modded back in the day.
Same for every person who I knew who had a Nintendo DS, had an R4 card
It did not kill the PSX, nor did it kill the NDS
This makes me sad. Worst thing is that there was nothing on PS2 that impressed as much as Soul Calibur for like year and all multiplats looked like crap with jaggies everywhere, but the hype made everyone wait for and buy PS2 instead. DOA2 had 60fps cutscenes, that's about the only "win" PS2 had at the start.
It was very common because you hung out with lots of unscrupulous people?
Man i cannot wait to used FUD in real life. Like... dude FUD'd me up! Or like we'll try to FUD them up. He was FUD beyond repair!
Damn, not the guy you're replying to but there are different situations and realities than your own. In Brazil, for example, no one (and I truly mean no one) had a PS1 or a PS2 without a modchip. You couldn't even find them, basically.
I'm just annoyed by people continuing to use anecdotal experiences as facts.
Untrue, at least here in Europe. The launch game SSX looked jaw-dropping, even after playing Soul Calibur on a rented DC. It certainly wasn't jaggy. The same goes for Tekken Tag Tournament, which looked at least as good as SC, and its visuals were improved since the launch in Japan. It did have more aliasing at that time.
I am here in Europe, I wasn't impressed by anything, most games were super jaggy compared to DC and also ran at 50hz compared to PAL60 on DC. MGS2 was impressive though, and Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, but those came later.
The R4 was all bought by parents, and the PSX was modded by dads or some local game store. Very shady folks indeed. You would be surprised how mainstream mod chips or those NDS cards where.
I grew up in the netherlands btw.
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The Sony Emotion Engine and Toy Story level graphics bullshit was really strong back on the day. Plus people had bad memories of the Saturn. In the end I also agree that the DC library was heavily Japan oriented, which was at same time great (produced so many classics) but not forward thinking in the changing market.
Yep, I'm from Uruguay and I had never seen an original PS1 game until I went to Japan. Pirated games were sold in shopping malls like if they were the real thing.
I was. I had rented DC before the PS2 launch for two weeks, with SC, RE:CV, and Zombie Revenge. None of them impressed me as much as SSX, and none of them were as fun to play for me either.
Shadow of Memories also came out in March 2001,and while it wasn't such a looker, it's still among my all-time favorites, like SSX.
EDIT:
This misconception still seems to live on. It was Seamus Blackley who said that about Xbox.
And Bill Gates:
And also Nvidia:
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I really liked that Sega had those amazing teams working on their ideas rather than making "movie like" games. Overworks, Smilebit, Hitmaker, Sega Rosso were all amazing. Sega fell by fighting the good fight in the dev side
The only written statements are really from Bill Gates and Xbox development team. But somehow the Toy Story 2 level graphics entered the PS2 and Emotion Engine Imaginarium and everybody was talking about the upcoming revolution and thus DC was a thing of the past. While not as powerful as the newer consoles DC was leaps beyond its predecessors. But it was released more towards the end of a console generation and not truly the start of a new one.
From what I recall, the Toy Story myth was mostly used against the PS2 later on, like it still is even today, eventhough it was in fact used to boast about XB's graphical capabilities. I don't recall seeing any Toy Story hype about PS2 before the launch.
The Emotione Engine was hyped by Sony and Kutaragi, but that's the usual stuff we see every generation, the upcoming one included. And it wasn't that far from reality, considering how characters in games like Silent Hill 2+3 and FFX displayed emotion compared to the earlier entries.
I love Dreamcast. So many excellent games. I remember in high school slamming Mountain Dew, eating Taco Bell, and watching Snoop Dogg playing NFL 2K during the MTV Music Awards on 9/9/99.
However, by E3 2000 I was watching MGS2 trailers and Gran Turismo 3 gameplay clips. They were unbelievably exciting to watch and far beyond anything Dreamcast was showing on the horizon. Marketing "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" is not what killed Dreamcast. The PS2 was simply the unquestionable heir to the throne. Everyone understood it had superior specs, DVD, and better games. Slaughtering SEGA was inevitable. But it was really nice having Dreamcast until the PS2 actually got good the fall of 2001.
However, by E3 2000 I was watching MGS2 trailers and Gran Turismo 3 gameplay clips. They were unbelievably exciting to watch and far beyond anything Dreamcast was showing on the horizon. Marketing "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" is not what killed Dreamcast. The PS2 was simply the unquestionable heir to the throne. Everyone understood it had superior specs, DVD, and better games. Slaughtering SEGA was inevitable. But it was really nice having Dreamcast until the PS2 actually got good the fall of 2001.
I mean, of course. But the Dreamcast did almost everything right (including price), and for a while things looked good.
Then the first information about PS2 started to 'leak'.
Mega/Sega Cd was cool, Incredible games by the time (although not the video ones) but high price tag. 32x was a mistake and worse yet was the development of the 2 next gen machines (Japan an US developed) and the choosing of the Japan's project which was a 2D powerhouse but behind the 3D revolution. And of course the mess of the US launch. Dreamcast did everything right, including the price, but it was too late to match the PS2 train hype.
The GameCube found "moderate" success with ~24M consoles shipped because each of those consoles shipped within touching distance of profitability, and because games published by Nintendo regularly sold well over 1M copies. Even if you count that as a "moderate success", it was close enough to a failure for Nintendo to rethink their entire console strategy for the following generation.
The Xbox was a commercial failure. Like, unambiguously so. It was successful in its real mission, which was to give Microsoft a position within the games industry from which they could grow. However, they did that by spending obscene amounts of money. If, instead of launching the Dreamcast, Sega had launched the Xbox, with the same hardware, same software (except with Sega games exclusive to Xbox), same branding, same third party support as Xbox got, and same pricing, it would have killed Sega.
And that's why they pulled the Dreamcast as well. It was a money pit, and they ran out of money. One famous image says it all:
Sega did do many things right, but I disagree that it ever looked "good". Dreamcast sales never took off in Japan. It had good launch-day sales in North America but that didn't last (between September 1999 and the end of the year, Sega sold 1.5M Dreamcasts in NA - that quarter-and-a-bit in a single region accounted for about a sixth of all Dreamcasts sold ever). Third party support was lacking with some exceptions (Capcom being the only prominent one), and a large majority of the industry's key franchises stayed away from Dreamcast. Sega were losing tons of money. Things looked bad for Sega, except for a small bright spot just after the NA launch.
And yeah, PS2 hype played into that, but "Sony are going to hype the PS2" was not a shocking development that Sega caught Sega off guard.
I grew up with Sega from the mid-80s, with all sorts of marketing from their competitors. Even Blast Processing from Sega themselves. Moore blaming competitors marketing explains their demise - management not being accountable. A slow death that started at the tail end of the Megadrive.
Most DC games simply clicked with me, then they easily looked better than anything running on previous consoles plus other next-gen capabilites. Yeah it was a good time to play.
The Dreamcast did a lot of things right, and was a forward thinking console. But at that point in time I don't think there was anything Sega could have done to save their console business. They had burnt bridges with consumers with the Mega CD, 32X and Saturn, had weak third party support, their inhouse games were 'too Japanese' and their offering just wasn't on par with what the PS2 would bring to the table with DVD playback and BC with the PS1.
Also, SEGA spend tons of money on Arsenal, while nobody knew how incredible the games were looking. SEGA should have spend that money on advertising for Soul Caliber.